French–American relations refers to the relations between France and the United States since 1776. France was the first ally of the new United States due to its 1778 treaty and military support in the American Revolutionary War . The relations are part of France–Americas relations . The Franco-American relationship has been generally peaceful (except for large-scale fighting in 1798 and small-scale fighting in 1942) and the relationship is important for both nations.

In 2002, 62% of French people viewed the United States favorably; this number dropped below 50% for each year between 2003 and 2008, due in part to differences between the two countries during the Iraq War . As of 2013, 64% of French people viewed the U.S. favorably, increasing up to 75% in 2014. [2] According to a 2015 Gallup poll, 82% of Americans view France favorably. [4]

France and the American Revolution

As long as Great Britain and France remained at peace in Europe, and as long as the precarious balance in the American interior survived, British and French colonies coexisted without serious difficulty. However, beginning in earnest following the Glorious Revolution in England (1688), the simmering dynastic, religious, and factional rivalries between the Protestant British and Catholic French in both Europe and the Americas triggered four " French and Indian Wars " fought largely on American soil ( King William's War , 1689–97; Queen Anne's War , 1702–13; King George's War , 1744–48; and, finally the Seven Years' War , 1756–63). Great Britain finally removed the French from continental North America in 1763 following French defeat in the Seven Years' War. Within a decade, the British colonies were in open revolt, and France retaliated by secretly supplying the independence movement with troops and war materials.

After Congress declared independence in July 1776, its agents in Paris recruited officers for the Continental Army , notably the Marquis de Lafayette , who served with distinction as a major general. Despite a lingering distrust of France, the agents also requested a formal alliance. After readying their fleet and being impressed by the U.S. victory at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777, the French on February 6, 1778, concluded treaties of commerce and alliance that bound them to fight Britain until independence of the United States was assured.

The military alliance began poorly. French Admiral d'Estaing sailed to North America with a fleet in 1778, and began a joint effort with American General John Sullivan to capture a British outpost at Newport, Rhode Island . D'Estaing broke off the operation to confront a British fleet, and then, despite pleas from Sullivan and Lafayette, sailed away to Boston for repairs. Without naval support, the plan collapsed, and American forces under Sullivan had to conduct a fighting retreat alone. American outrage was widespread, and several French sailors were killed in anti-French riots. D'Estaing's actions in a disastrous siege at Savannah, Georgia further undermined Franco-American relations.

The alliance improved with the arrival in the United States in 1780 of the Comte de Rochambeau , who maintained a good working relationship with General Washington. French naval actions at the Battle of the Chesapeake made possible the decisive Franco–American victory at the siege of Yorktown in October 1781, effectively ending the war as far as the Americans were concerned. The French went on fighting, losing a naval battle to Britain in 1782.

Peace treaty

In the peace negotiations between the Americans and the British in Paris in 1782, the French played a major role. Indeed, the French Foreign Minister Vergennes had maneuvered so that the American Congress ordered its delegation to follow the advice of the French. However, the American commissioners, Benjamin Franklin , John Adams , and particularly John Jay , correctly realized that France did not want a strong United States. They realized that they would get better terms directly from Britain itself. The key episodes came in September, 1782, when Vergennes proposed a solution that was strongly opposed by the United States. France was exhausted by the war, and everyone wanted peace except Spain, which insisted on continuing the war until it captured Gibraltar from the British. Vergennes came up with the deal that Spain would accept instead of Gibraltar. The United States would gain its independence but be confined to the area east of the Appalachian Mountains. Britain would take the area north of the Ohio River . In the area south of that there would be set up an independent Indian state under Spanish control. It would be an Indian barrier state and keep the Americans from the Mississippi River or New Orleans, which were under Spanish control. John Jay promptly told the British that he was willing to negotiate directly with them, cutting off France and Spain. The British Prime Minister Lord Shelburne agreed. He was in full charge of the British negotiations and he now saw a chance to split the United States away from France and make the new country a valuable economic partner. The western terms were that the United States would gain all of the area east of the Mississippi River, north of Florida, and south of Canada. The northern boundary would be almost the same as today. [9] The United States would gain fishing rights off Canadian coasts, and agreed to allow British merchants and Loyalists to try to recover their property. It was a highly favorable treaty for the United States, and deliberately so from the British point of view. Prime Minister Shelburne foresaw highly profitable two-way trade between Britain and the rapidly growing United States, as it indeed came to pass. Trade with France was always on a much smaller scale. [10]

The French Revolution and Napoleon

Six years later, the French Revolution toppled the Bourbon regime. At first, the United States was quite sympathetic to the new situation in France, where the hereditary monarchy was replaced by a constitutional republic . However, in the matter of a few years, the situation in France turned sour, as foreign powers tried to invade France and King Louis XVI was accused of high treason. The French revolutionary government then became increasingly authoritarian and brutal, which dissipated some of the United States' warmth for France.

A crisis emerged in 1793 when France found itself at war again with Great Britain and its allies, this time after the French revolutionary government had executed the king. The new federal government in the United States was uncertain how to respond. Should the United States recognize the radical government of France by accepting a diplomatic representative from it? Was the United States obliged by the alliance of 1778 to go to war on the side of France? The treaty had been called "military and economic", and as the United States had not finished paying off the French loan, would the military alliance be ignored as well?

President George Washington (responding to advice from both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson ) recognized the French government, but did not support France in the war with Britain, as expressed in his 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality . The proclamation was issued and declared without Congressional approval. Congress instead acquiesced, and a year later passed a neutrality act forbidding U.S. citizens to participate in the war and prohibiting the use of U.S. soil as a base of operation for either side. Thus, the revolutionary government viewed Washington's policy as partial to the enemy.

The first challenge to U.S. neutrality came from France, when its first diplomatic representative, the brash Edmond-Charles Genêt , toured the United States to organize U.S. expeditions against Spain and Britain. Exasperated, Washington demanded Genêt's recall, but by then the French Revolution had taken yet another turn and the new French ministers arrived to arrest Genêt. Washington refused to extradite Genêt (knowing he would otherwise be guillotined ). Genêt became a U.S. citizen and married Cornelia Tappan Clinton , daughter of New York governor George Clinton .

France regarded Jay's Treaty (November 1794) between Britain and the United States as hostile. It opened a decade of trade when France was at war with Britain.

Timothy Pickering (1745-1829) was the third United States Secretary of State , serving in that office from 1795 to 1800 under Washington and John Adams . Biographer Gerald Clarfield says he was a "quick-tempered, self-righteous, frank, and aggressive Anglophile," who handled the French poorly. In response the French envoy Pierre Adet repeatedly provoked Pickering into embarrassing situations, then ridiculed his blunderings and blusterings to appeal to Republican Party opponents of the Administration.

Quasi War 1798–1800

To overcome this resentment John Adams sent a special mission to Paris in 1797 to meet the French foreign minister Talleyrand . The American delegation was shocked, however, when it was demanded that they pay monetary bribes in order to meet and secure a deal with the French government. Adams exposed the episode, known as the " XYZ Affair ", which greatly offended Americans even though such bribery was not uncommon among the courts of Europe. [11]

Tensions with France increased to the point that the period is described as an undeclared war. Two years of hostilities at sea, or the " Quasi-War ", followed. The Federalists imposed severe restrictions on French sympathizers in the Alien and Sedition Acts . It ended in September 1800 with the Treaty of Morfontaine , which ended the "entangling" French alliance with the United States. In truth, this alliance had only been viable between 1778 and 1783.

Napoleon

By 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte forced Spain to turn over Louisiana , which he envisioned as the base (along with Haiti) of a New World empire. President Thomas Jefferson could tolerate weak Spain but not powerful France in the west. He considered war to prevent French control of the Mississippi River. At first, though, Jefferson sent his close friend, James Monroe , to France to buy as much of the land around New Orleans as he could. Surprisingly, Napoleon agreed to sell the entire territory. Because of an insuppressible slave rebellion in St. Domingue , modern-day Haiti, among other reasons, Bonaparte's North American plans collapsed. To keep Louisiana out of British hands in an approaching war he sold it in April 1803 to the United States for $15 million. The size of the United States was doubled without going to war.

A foreign crisis loomed as warring Britain and France challenged U.S. neutrality and desire to trade with both nations. Jefferson's presupposition was that small neutral nations could benefit from the wars of the great powers. He distrusted both Napoleon and Great Britain, but saw Britain (with its great navy and position in Canada) as the more immediate threat to American interests. Therefore, he and Madison took a generally pro-French position and used the embargo to hurt British trade. Both Britain and France infringed on U.S. maritime rights. The British infringed more and also impressed thousands of American sailors into the Royal Navy; France never did anything like impressment. President Jefferson signed the Embargo Act in 1807, which forbade all exports and imports. Designed to hurt the British, it hurt U.S. commerce far more. The destructive Embargo Act, which had brought U.S. trade to a standstill, was rescinded in 1809, although both Britain and France remained hostile to the United States. The War of 1812 was the logical extension of the embargo program as the United States declared war on Britain. However, there was never any sense of being an ally of France and no effort was made to coordinate military activity.

France and Spain had not defined a boundary between Louisiana and neighboring territory retained by Spain, leaving this problem for the U.S. and Spain to sort out. The U.S. inherited the French claims to Texas, then in the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty traded these (and a little of the Mississippi drainage itself) in return for U.S. possession of Florida, where American settlers and the U.S. Army were already encroaching, and acquisition of Spain's weak claims to the Pacific Northwest. Before three more decades had passed, the United States had annexed Texas . [4]

In the 1840s Britain and France considered sponsoring continued independence of the Republic of Texas and blocking U.S. moves to obtain California. Balance of power considerations made Britain want to keep the western territories out of U.S. hands to limit U.S. power; in the end, France opposed such intervention in order to limit British power, the same reason for which France had sold Louisiana to the U.S. and earlier supported the American Revolution. [4] Thus the great majority of the territorial growth of the continental United States was accomplished with French support.

Civil War

During the American Civil War , 1861–65, France was neutral. However Napoleon III favored the seceding Southern states of the Confederacy , hoping to weaken the United States, create a new ally in the Confederacy, safeguard the cotton trade and protect his large investment in controlling Mexico. France was too weak to declare war alone (which might cause Prussia to attack), and needed British support. The British were unwilling to go to war and nothing happened. Napoleon III took advantage of the war in 1863, when he installed Austrian archduke Maximilian of Habsburg on the throne in Mexico. The United States protested and refused to recognize the new government. [4]

U.S. celebration of the anniversary of the Mexican victory over the French on Cinco de Mayo , 1862 started the following year and has continued up to the present. In 1865, the United States used increasing diplomatic pressure to persuade Napoleon III to end French support of Maximilian and to withdraw French troops from Mexico. When the French troops left the Mexicans executed the puppet emperor Maximilian. [4]

1866–1906

The removal of Napoleon III in 1870 after the Franco-Prussian War helped improve Franco–American relations. During the Siege of Paris , the small American population, led by the United States Minister to France Elihu B. Washburne , provided much medical, humanitarian, and diplomatic support to peoples of all nations, gaining much credit to the Americans. [4] In subsequent years the balance of power in the relationship shifted in favor of the United States. The United States, rising to the status as a great power, came to overshadow Europe.

All during this period the relationship remained friendly—as symbolized by the Statue of Liberty , presented in 1884 as a gift to the United States from the French people. From 1870 until 1918, France was the only major republic in Europe, which endeared it to the United States. Many French people held the United States in high esteem, as a land of opportunity and as a source of modern ideas—a trend which lasted well into the 1950s until the mention of a "friendly colonisation of France" by the Eisenhower administration in 1956 (though few French people emigrated to the United States).

World War I (1914–19)

The Great War (1917–18)

During World War I the United States was initially neutral but eventually entered the conflict in 1917 and provided much-needed funding, food and ammunition for the French effort. In 1918 the United States sent over a million combat troops who were located to the south of the main French lines. They gave the Allies a decisive edge, as the Germans were unable to replace their heavy losses and lost their self-confidence by September 1918. The American troops were sent over without their heavy equipment (so that the ships could carry more soldiers). They used French artillery, airplanes and tanks, such as the SPAD XIII fighter biplane and Renault FT light tank serving in the aviation and armored formations respectively, of the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in 1918.

The peace settlement (1919)

Wilson had become the hero of the war for Frenchmen, and his arrival in Paris was widely hailed. However, the two countries clashed over France's policy to weaken Germany and make it pay for the entire French war. The burning ambition of French Premier Georges Clemenceau was to ensure the security of France in the future; his formula was not friendship with Germany restitution, reparations, and guarantees. Clemenceau had little confidence in what he considered to be the unrealistic and utopian principles of US President Woodrow Wilson : "Even God was satisfied with Ten Commandments , but Wilson insists on fourteen" (a reference to Wilson's " Fourteen Points "). The two nations disagreed on debts, reparations, and restraints on Germany.

Clemenceau was also determined that a buffer state consisting of the German territory west of the Rhine River should be established under the aegis of France. In the eyes of the U.S. and British representatives, such a crass violation of the principle of self-determination would only breed future wars, and a compromise was therefore offered Clemenceau, which he accepted. The territory in question was to be occupied by Allied troops for a period of five to fifteen years, and a zone extending fifty kilometers east of the Rhine was to be demilitarized. Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George agreed that the United States and Great Britain, by treaty, would guarantee France against German aggression. Republican leaders in Washington were willing to support a security treaty with France. It failed because Wilson insisted on linking it to the Versailles Treaty, which the Republicans would not accept without certain amendments Wilson refused to allow. [4]

While French historian Duruoselle portrays Clemenceau as wiser than Wilson, and equally compassionate and committed to justice but one who understood that world peace and order depended on the permanent suppression of the German threat. [4] Blumenthal (1986), by contrast, says Wilson's policies were far sounder than the harsh terms demanded by Clemenceau. Blumenthal agrees with Wilson that peace and prosperity required Germany's full integration into the world economic and political community as an equal partner. One result was that in the 1920s the French deeply distrusted the Americans, who were loaning money to Germany (which Germany used to pay its reparations to France and other Allies), while demanding that France repay its war loans from Washington. [4] [4] [4]

Interwar years (1919–39)

During the interwar years, the two nations remained friendly. Beginning in the 1920s, U.S. intellectuals, painters, writers, and tourists were drawn to French art, literature, philosophy, theatre, cinema, fashion, wines, and cuisine.

A number of American artists, such as Josephine Baker , experienced popular success in France. Paris was also quite welcoming to American jazz music and black artists in particular, as France, unlike a significant part of the United States at the time, had no racial discrimination laws. Numerous writers such as William Faulkner , F. Scott Fitzgerald , Ernest Hemingway , and others were deeply influenced by their experiences of French life.

However, anti-Americanism came of age in the 1920s, as many French traditionalists were alarmed at the power of Hollywood and warned that America represented modernity, which in turn threatened traditional French values , customs, and popular literature. The alarm of American influence escalated half a century later when Americans opened a $4 billion Disneyland Paris theme park in 1992. It attracted larger crowds than the Louvre , and soon it was said that the iconic American cartoon character Mickey Mouse had become more familiar than Asterix among French youth. [17]

In 1928 the two nations were the chief sponsors of the Kellogg–Briand Pact which informally outlawed war. The pact, which was endorsed by most major nations, renounced the use of war, promoted peaceful settlement of disputes, and called for collective force to prevent aggression. Its provisions were incorporated into the United Nations Charter and other treaties and it became a stepping stone to a more activist American policy.

World War II (1939–45)

Vichy France (1940–44)

Langer (1947) argues that Washington was shocked by the sudden collapse of France in spring 1940, and feared that Germany might gain control of the large French fleet, and exploit France's overseas colonies, led the Roosevelt administration to maintain diplomatic relations. FDR appointed his close associate Admiral William D. Leahy as ambassador. Vichy regime was officially neutral but it was helping Germany.

The United States severed diplomatic relations in late 1942 when Germany took direct control of areas that Vichy had ruled, and Vichy France became a Nazi puppet state . More recently, Hurstfield (1986) concluded that Roosevelt, not the State Department, had made the decision, thereby deflecting criticism from leftwing elements of his coalition onto the hapless State Department. When the experiment ended FDR brought Leahy back to Washington as his top military advisor and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Free French Forces

Relations were strained between Roosevelt and Charles De Gaulle , the leader of the Free French , who had refused to participate in the Normandy landings in June 1944. After Normandy the Americans and the Allies knew it was only a matter of time before the Nazis lost. Eisenhower did give De Gaulle his word that Paris would be liberated by the French as the Americans had no interest in Paris, a city they considered lacking tactical value. It was therefore easy for Eisenhower to let De Gaulle's FFI take the charge. There was one important aspect of Paris that did seem to matter to everyone: it was its historical and cultural significance. Hitler had given the order to bomb and burn Paris to the ground; he wanted to make it a second Stalingrad . The Americans and the Allies could not let this happen. [18] The French 2nd armored division with Maj. Gen Phillipe Leclerc at its helm was granted this supreme task of liberating Paris. [19] General Leclerc was ecstatic at this thought because he wanted to wipe away the humiliation of the Vichy Government. [18]

General George S. Patton was at the command of the U.S. Third Army that swept across northern France. It campaigned in Lorraine for some time, but it was one of the least successful of Patton’s career. While in Lorraine, he annexed the Maj. Gen. Phillipe Leclerc’s battalion into his army. [18] Leclerc did not respect his American counterparts because like the British he thought that they were new to the war. Therefore, he thought the Americans did not know what they were doing on the field. After being more trouble than help Patton let Leclerc go for Paris. The French then went on to liberate Paris from the east while the 4th U.S. Infantry (they were originally part of Patton’s Army) came from the west. Because of Eisenhower’s deal with De Gaulle, the Liberation was left to the French’s 2nd armored division. [18] [19] [21] With De Gaulle becoming the head of state, the Americans and the British had no other choice, but to accept him. Eisenhower even came to Paris to give De Gaulle his blessing.

Postwar years

In the postwar years, both cooperation and discord persisted. The debts left over from World War I, whose payment had been suspended since 1931, was renegotiated in the Blum-Byrnes agreement of 1946. The United States forgave all $2.8 billion in debt, and gave France a new loan of $650 million. In return French negotiator Jean Monnet set out the French five-year plan for recovery and development. [5]

The United States helped revive the French economy with the Marshall Plan whereby it gave France $2.3 billion with no repayment. The total of all American grants and credits to France from 1946 to 1953, amounted to $4.9 billion. [5]

Cold War

In 1949 the two became formal allies through the North Atlantic treaty, which set up the NATO military alliance. Although the United States openly disapproved of French efforts to regain control of colonies in Africa and Southeast Asia, it supported the French government in fighting the Communist uprising in French Indochina . [5] However, in 1954, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower declined French requests for aerial strikes to relieve besieged French forces at Dien Bien Phu . [5] [5]

Both countries opposed the Soviet Union in Cold War confrontations but went through another crisis in 1956. When France, Britain, and Israel attacked Egypt , which had recently nationalized the Suez Canal and shown signs of warming relations with the Soviet Union and China, Eisenhower forced them to withdraw. By exposing their diminished international stature, the Suez Crisis had a profound impact on the UK and France: the UK subsequently aligned its Middle East policy to that of the United States, [5] whereas France distanced itself from what it considered to be unreliable allies and sought its own path. [5]

While occasional tensions surfaced between the governments, the French public, except for the Communists, generally had a good opinion of the United States throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. Despite some cultural friction, the United States was seen as a benevolent giant, the land of modernity, and French youth took a taste to American culture such as chewing gum , Coca-Cola , and rock and roll .

United States patriotic poster depicting the French heroine Joan of Arc during the World War I.

De Gaulle

In the 1950s France sought American help in developing nuclear weapons; Eisenhower rejected the overtures for four reasons. Before 1958, he was troubled by the political instability of the French Fourth Republic and worried that it might use nuclear weapons in its colonial wars in Vietnam and Algeria. Charles de Gaulle brought stability to the Fifth Republic starting in 1958, but Eisenhower knew him too well from the war years. De Gaulle wanted to challenge the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on Western weapons by having his own Force de frappe . Eisenhower feared his grandiose plans to use the bombs to restore French grandeur would weaken NATO. Furthermore, Eisenhower wanted to discourage the proliferation of nuclear arms anywhere. [5]

DeGaulle also quarreled with Washington over the admission of Britain into the European Economic Community . These and other tensions led to de Gaulle's decision in 1966 to withdraw French forces from the integrated military structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and forced it to move its headquarters to Belgium. De Gaulle's foreign policy was centered on an attempt to limit the power and influence of both superpowers, which would increase France's international prestige in relative terms. De Gaulle hoped to move France from being a follower of the United States to a leading first-world power with a large following among certain non-aligned Third World countries. The nations de Gaulle considered potential participants in this grouping were those in France's traditional spheres of influence, Africa and the Middle East. [5]

The two nations differed over the waging of the Vietnam War , in part because French leaders were convinced that the United States could not win. The recent French experience with the Algerian War of Independence was that it was impossible, in the long run, for a democracy to impose by force a government over a foreign population without considerable manpower and probably the use of unacceptable methods such as torture. The French popular view of the United States worsened at the same period, as it came to be seen as an imperialist power. [5]

1970–1989

Relations improved somewhat after de Gaulle lost power in 1969. Small tensions reappeared intermittently. France, more strongly than any other nation, has seen the European Union as a method of counterbalancing American power, and thus works towards such ends as having the Euro challenge the preeminent position of the United States dollar in global trade and developing a European defense initiative as an alternative to NATO . Overall, the United States had much closer relations with the other large European powers, Great Britain, Germany and Italy. In the 1980s the two nations cooperated on some international matters but disagreed sharply on others, such as Operation El Dorado Canyon and the desirability of a reunified Germany . The Reagan administration did its best efforts to prevent France and other European countries from buying natural gas from Russia, through the construction of the Siberia-Europe pipeline . The European governments, including the French, were undeterred and the pipeline was finally built.

The French ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C. It served as the French embassy from 1936 to 1985.

Public attempts in 2003 to boycott French goods in retaliation for perceived French "active hostility toward America" ultimately fizzled out, having had no impact. [30] Nonetheless, the Iraq war, the attempted boycott, and anti-French sentiments routinely whipped up by American commentators and politicians bred increased suspicion of the United States among the French public in 2003, just as anti-war demonstrations, hostile treatment of American tourists in Europe, and the actions of the French government bred a similar level of increased distrust of France in the United States. By 2006, only one American in six considered France an ally of the United States. [32]

The ire of American popular opinion towards France during the run-up to the 2003 Iraq Invasion was primarily due to the fact that France decided not to intervene in Iraq (because the French did not believe the reasons given to go to war, such as the supposed link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda, and the purported weapons of mass destruction to be legitimate). This contributed to the perception of the French as uncooperative and unsympathetic in American popular opinion at the time. This perception was quite strong and persisted despite the fact that France was and had been for some time a major ally in the campaign in Afghanistan (see for example the French forces in Afghanistan ) where both nations (among others in the US-led coalition) were dedicated to the removal of the rogue Taliban, and the subsequent stabilization of Afghanistan, a recognized training ground and safe haven for terrorists intent on carrying out attacks in the Western world.

As the Iraq War progressed, relations between the two nations began to improve. In June 2006 the Pew Global Attitudes Project revealed that 52% of Americans had a positive view of France, up from 46% in 2005. [48] Other reports indicate Americans are moving not so much toward favorable views of France as toward ambivalence, [34] and that views toward France have stabilized roughly on par with views toward Russia and China. [86]

Following issues like Hezbollah's rise in Lebanon, Iran's nuclear program and the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, George Bush urged Jacques Chirac and other world leaders to "stand up for peace" in the face of extremism during a meeting in New York on September 19, 2006.

Strong French and American diplomatic cooperation at the United Nations played an important role in the Cedar Revolution , which saw the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. France and the United States also worked together (with some tensions) in crafting UN resolution 1701, intended to bring about a ceasefire in the 2006 Israeli–Lebanese conflict .

Sarkozy administration

Political relations between France and the United States became friendlier after Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President of France in 2007. [86] [86] [86] [86] Sarkozy, who has been called "Sarko the American", has said that he "love[s] America" and that he is "proud of his nickname". [86]

Obama and McCain also met with Sarkozy in Paris after securing their respective nominations in 2008. After receiving Obama in July, Sarkozy was quoted saying "Obama? C'est mon copain", [86] which means "Obama? He's my buddy." Because of their previous acquaintance, relations between the Sarkozy and Obama administrations were expected to be warm. [86]

Since 2008, France has been back to the integrated command of NATO , [86] a decision that has been greatly appreciated by the United States.

In 2011 the two countries were part of the multi-state coalition which launched a military intervention in Libya where they led the alliance and conducted 35% of all NATO strikes.

Hollande administration

In 2013, France launched a major operation in Mali to free the country from an ad-hoc alliance of terrorists and Azawa rebels. The United States provided France with logistical support for Operation Serval .

"As one of our oldest and closest allies, France is a strong partner in our efforts against terrorism and we are pleased that French and American service members will once again work together on behalf of our shared security and our shared values."

"L'Hermione is a luminous episode of our history. She is a champion of universal values, freedom, courage and of the friendship between France and the United States," [57]

President Barack Obama in a letter commemorating the voyage stated:

For more than two centuries, the United States and France have stood united in the freedom we owe to one another. From the battlefields where a revolution was won to the beaches where the liberation of a continent began, generations of our peoples have defended the ideals that guide us-overcoming the darkness of oppression and injustice with the light of liberty and equality, time and again.

As we pay tribute to the extraordinary efforts made by General Lafayette and the French people to advance the Revolutionary cause, we reflect on the partnership that has made France our Nation’s oldest ally. By continuing to renew and deepen our alliance in our time, we ensure generations to come can carry it forward proudly. [58]

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